Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Wednesday, October 8. 2008

How is your net worth doing this month?

I don't care about the value of my house, because I am not going anywhere. I love where I am, especially as the air grows crisper, the leaves change, and hunting season begins.

My pension though, of which 75% in the various stock markets of the world (but mostly US), has taken a bad hit, which is discouraging to say the least. This is ouch.

And outside my pension - I could have had much more fun spending that money on toys and trips than watching it evaporate.

I asked my money manager pal what he's doing. He said that, for taxable, he is buying medium-term high grade corporates and GNMA pass-throughs. Otherwise, he likes munis at this point.

He (wisely) would not advise about holding or selling my stocks and equity mutual funds. Or buying now for the long haul, as Warren Buffet is doing. Thinking GE and American Express. Who knows? We're going into a global recession, so there will be time to think. But not to worry - America is strong and we barristers are always in demand. And, at Maggie's, we do not believe in retirement anyway. Who wants to be useless?

Washington should make laws that investments can only go up, and that prices for other things we buy only go down, don'tcha think?

Posted by The Barrister in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 09:08 | Comments (17) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

It's patriotic to hold stocks. You voluntarily take your share of the loss of the value of capital instead of trying to toss it off on your neighbor.

As for retirement funds, the retirement age has to go up anyway. You're just seeing the mechanism at work a little earlier and more quickly than models predicted.

(Too many retiree sellers for the saving workers, until the age is found at which they balance, reduces the return to capital.)

I myself sold out.
#1 Ron Hardin (Link) on 2008-10-08 10:23 (Reply)
Ron, your first and your last sentences contradict each other --unless you is unpatriotic --in which case, i'd be willing to sell you some of my stuff and help you get back patriotic agin.
#1.1 buddy larsen on 2008-10-08 10:32 (Reply)
Concidence pic, I took this yesterday
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhhardin/2922181441/sizes/o/

Less leaf turning and more Hurricane Ike (Ohio), is all.
#2 Ron Hardin (Link) on 2008-10-08 10:25 (Reply)
Net worth wise, before this crash, say midsummer, I was about 50-50 local real estate and financials.

At the moment, dunno about the local r/e, but the other is off nearly half --and it's defensive --basic mtrls & energy --things people use up and replace.

I'm glum, but have enough cash to where the dread 'forced sells at bottoms' ain't gonna hit me --for a few years anyway, barring disasters or explosions of anti-frugality.

I've learned a lot over the years (the schooling has cost dearly) but clearly i have yet a few more courses in store --
#3 buddy larsen on 2008-10-08 10:26 (Reply)
The smartest and wealthiest guy I know would never own a stock. Nor would he go to Las Vegas. He says it's gambling.

Long-term equity returns are better, of course. But "long-term" is relative.

Yesterday, Barton Biggs said you have to decide whether we are headed for a normal, if tough, recession - or whether you think we are headed for something qualitatively worse. Fact is, people always imagine that "it" will be qualitatively worse, but it rarely is.
#4 BD on 2008-10-08 10:36 (Reply)
Barton Biggs is good. Also Wilbur Ross. Also Sam Zell.
#4.1 buddy larsen on 2008-10-08 12:22 (Reply)
BD ... We're opting on the side of a "normal, if tough, recession". After all, it takes a while for the remedial measures to take effect. The dumb Congress just passed the bailout last week. We try not to mess with money when we're depressed about things. Otherwise we make less than perfect decisions. Hang in there and watch what happens for awhile. After all, as the lady [Jill Eikenbery} used to say on L.A. Law, "what could it hoit?"

Marianne
#5 Marianne Matthews on 2008-10-08 10:59 (Reply)
Yes, the Weimar Republic was famous for prices and everything going up... so quickly that you paid for your beers at the start of the night because they would cost more by the end of it.

I do, indeed, have an annuity for disability and investments in the market. That money in the market is for the future, not today... we must get through today to get to the future. I am unhappy with many things, but the primary one is the move by Congress to remove prudent fiscal accountability as part of the loan making procedures. Even worse is no one is looking to repeal that legislation and remove the malignant organizations that encouraged such things from federal support and seek convictions against those who ran them to such ill ends.

You have liberty which you may use your rights to get yourself a home. You have no right to a home, but you have the liberty and opportunity to get one so long as you take responsibility for your means and accountability. When the left cleared out the sanitariums and mentally ill were made into 'homeless' we understood, as a society, that there is no 'right' to a roof over your head. If you have wits and understand yourself, you have the liberty to seek to your benefit and make it possible to get one.

The Left is seriously trying to destroy rights, liberty and freedom by mixing them up until they are a bland goo to which they can claim anything at any time and never need to understand why they are different. It is sad that the Right now seems to be signing on to this. For soon we shall have no liberty, no rights and no freedom, and be enslaved to our government, the perpetual punisher from which we expect 'nice things'.

Don't mind the whip and jails of the punisher... they are for your own good as long as you do as it says.
#6 ajacksonian (Link) on 2008-10-08 11:11 (Reply)
Capitalism depends on confidence, which creates itself via a certain sort of demand for a certain sort of outcome. Some pretty fundamental questions seem to be in the air these days. Can't help but think of Lincoln's 'house divided' speech --which he gave in 1858, less than three years before the cannons roared.
#7 buddy larsen on 2008-10-08 12:15 (Reply)
I am with you B- I like my house. I'm glad I put 21% down on it. Although that equity is now diminished and now I hope the thing won't go upside down. But in reality, I ain't leaving- the place rocks and where would I go? 1908, 8 br, 3200sf, to an apartment?
#8 Phil on 2008-10-08 13:45 (Reply)
i can almost match ya --1944, with cedar log studs and rafters that eliminate all right-angles throughout. Nothing square anywhere --sorta hallucinatory to those that can spy a line one degree off level or plumb. Enforces a sort of behavioral therapy on them free-floating anal-retentive demands for orderly environs.
#8.1 buddy larsen on 2008-10-08 14:01 (Reply)
Ours settled that way over the last 100 years. I am sure it was built square! It was unsettling at first because I am a designer and slightly out of square really can be jarring to me, but now I like my rollercoaster floors. My next house will be all star wars style- big balloons with concrete blown over them, although I will ensure flat floors.
#8.1.1 Phil on 2008-10-08 17:33 (Reply)
Too many chicken littles around on the web for my liking at the moment...things arn't good but then most have us have just had a good ride...it will all come out in the wash!
#9 thud (Link) on 2008-10-08 14:52 (Reply)
Everybody buy a Tesla Roadster (to be powered by a T. Boone Pickens wind farm).

We can race into the future together.
#10 commander clopfelter (Link) on 2008-10-08 15:15 (Reply)
We're going on the assumption that a sale now is a certain loss. Riding it out holds the hope of break-even or gain.
#11 obladioblada on 2008-10-08 15:58 (Reply)
Actually, if you're selling a house to buy another house, it's a wash. The new house is cheaper too. Imagine the transaction as just trading houses and mortgages with the other guy.

It's probably more complicated if you use money.
#12 Ron Hardin (Link) on 2008-10-08 17:48 (Reply)
With home prices the way they are right now, my hubby and I are looking at buying more rental property for investments. We see it as a better long term alternative to the stock market and the prices look to be good for a while. (I guess there are benefits to paying your mortage.) We're young, though, and won't be retiring for at least 40 years if at all. Why retire if you can make yourself a perfect job? That's our goal.
#13 Eilish (Link) on 2008-10-08 23:22 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.